New Lands

by Charles Fort

  In the English Mechanic, Sept. 10, 1897, a correspondent to the Weekly Times and Echo is quoted. He had just returned from the Yukon. Early in June, 1897, he had seen a city pictured in the sky of Alaska. “Not one of us could form the remotest idea in what part of the world this settlement could be. Some guessed Toronto, others Montreal, and one of us even suggested Pekin. But whether this city exists in some unknown world on the other side of the North Pole, or not, it is a fact that this wonderful mirage occurs from time to time yearly, and we were not the only ones who witnessed the spectacle. Therefore it is evident that it must be the reflection of some place built by the hand of man.” According to this correspondent, the “mirage” did not look like one of the cities named, but like “some immense city of the past.”

  In the New York Tribune, Feb. 17, 1901, it is said that Indians of Alaska had told of an occasional appearance, as if of a city, suspended in the sky, and that a prospector, named Willoughby, having heard the stories, had investigated, in the year 1887, and had seen the spectacle. It is said that, having several times attempted to photograph the scene, Willoughby did finally at least show an alleged photograph of an aerial city. In Alaska, p. 140, Miner Bruce says that Willoughby, one of the early pioneers in Alaska, after whom Willoughby Island is named, had told him of the phenomenon, and that, early in 1899, he had accompanied Willoughby to the place over which the mirage was said to repeat. It seems that he saw nothing himself, but he quotes a member of the Duc d’Abruzzi’s expedition to Mt. St. Elias, summer of 1897, Mr. C.W. Thornton, of Seattle, who saw the spectacle, and wrote—“It required no effort of the imagination to liken it to a city, but was so distinct that it required, instead, faith to believe that it was not in reality a city.” Bruce publishes a reproduction of Willoughby’s photograph, and says that the city was identified as Bristol, England. So definite, or so unmirage-like, is this reproduction, trees and many buildings shown in detail, that one supposes that the original was a photograph of a good-sized terrestrial city, perhaps Bristol, England.

  In Chapter 10 of his book, Wonders of Alaska, Alexander Badlam tries to explain. He publishes a reproduction of Willoughby’s photograph: it is the same as Bruce’s, except that all buildings are transposed, or are negative in positions. Badlam does not like to accuse Willoughby of fraud: his idea is that some unknown humorist had sold Willoughby a dry plate, picturing part of the city of Bristol. My own idea is that something of this kind did occur, and that this photograph, greatly involved in accounts of the repeating mirages, had nothing to do with the mirages. Badlam then tells of another photograph. He tells that two men, near the Muir Glacier, had, by means of a pan of quicksilver, seen a reflection of an unknown city somewhere, and that their idea was that it was at the bottom of the sea near the glacier, reflecting in the sky, and reflecting back to and from the quicksilver. That’s complicated. A photographer named Taber then announced that he had photographed this scene, as reflected in a pan of quicksilver. Badlam publishes a reproduction of Taber’s photograph, or alleged photograph. This time, for anybody who prefers to think that there is, somewhere in the sky of Alaska, a great, unknown city, we have a most agreeable photograph: exotic-looking city; a structure like a coliseum, and another prominent building like a mosque, and many indefinite, mirage-like buildings. I’d like to think this photograph genuine, myself, but I do conceive that Taber could have taken it by photographing a panorama that he had painted. Badlands explanation is that mirages of glaciers are common, in Alaska, and that they look architectural. Some years ago, I read five or six hundred pounds of literature upon the Arctic, and I should say that far-projected mirages are not common in the Arctic: mere looming is common. Badlam publishes a photograph of a mirage of Muir Glacier. The looming points of ice do look Gothic, but they are obviously only loomings, extending only short distances from primaries, with no detachment from primaries, and not reflecting in the sky.

  For the first identification of the Willoughby photograph as a photograph of part of the city of Bristol, see the New York Times, Oct. 20, 1889. That this photograph was somebody’s hoax seems to be acceptable. But it was not similar to the frequently reported scene in the sky of Alaska, according to descriptions. In the New York Times, Oct. 31, 1889, is an account, by Mr. L.B. French, of Chicago, of the spectral representation, as he saw it, near Mt. Fairweather. “We could see plainly houses, well-defined streets, and trees. Here and there rose tall spires over huge buildings, which appeared to be ancient mosques or cathedrals . . . It did not look like a modern city—more like an ancient European City.”

  Jour. Roy. Met. Soc., 27-158:

  That every year, between June 21 and July 10, a “phantom city” appears in the sky, over a glacier in Alaska; that features of it had been recognized as buildings in the city of Bristol, England, so that the “mirage” was supposed to be a mirage of Bristol. It is said that for generations these repeating representations had been known to the Alaskan Indians, and that, in May 1901, a scientific expedition from San Francisco would investigate. It is said that, except for slight changes, from year to year, the scene was always the same.

  La Nature, 1901-1-303:

  That a number of scientists had set out from Victoria, B.C, to Mt. Fairweather, Alaska, to study a repeating mirage of a city in the sky, which had been reported by the Duc d’Abruzzi, who had seen it and had sketched it.

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  Night of Dec 7, 1900—for seventy minutes a fountain of light played upon the planet Mars.

  Prof. Pickering—“absolutely inexplicable” (Sci. Amer., 84-179).

  It may have been a geyser of messages. It may be translated someday. If it were expressed in imagery befitting the salutation by a planet to its dominant, it may be known someday as the most heroic oration in the literature of this geo-system. See Lowell’s account in Popular Astronomy, 10-187. Here are published several of the values in a possible code of long flashes and short flashes. Lowell takes a supposed normality for unity, and records variations of two-thirds, one and one third, and one and a half. If there be, at Flagstaff, Arizona, records of all the long flashes and short flashes that were seen, for seventy minutes, upon this night of Dec. 7, 1900, it is either that the greetings of an island of space have been hopelessly addressed to a continental stolidity, or there will have to be the descent, upon Flagstaff, Arizona, by all the amateur Champollions of this earth, to concentrate in one deafening buzz of attempted translation.

  It was at this time that Tesla announced that he had received, upon his wireless apparatus, vibrations that he attributed to the Martians. They were series of triplets.

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  It is our expression that, during eclipses and oppositions and other notable celestial events, lunarians try to communicate with this earth, having a notion that at such times the astronomers of this earth may be more nearly alert.

  An eclipse of the moon, March 10-11, 1895—not a cloud; no mist—electric flashes like lightning, reported from a ship upon the Atlantic (Eng. Mec., 61-100).

  During the eclipse of the sun, July 29, 1897, a strange image was taken on a sensitive plate, by Mr. L.E. Martindale, of St. Mary’s, Ohio. It looks like a record of knotted lightning. See Photography, May 26, 1898.

  In the Bull. Soc. Astro. de France, 17-205, 315, 447, it is said that upon the first and the third of March, 1903, a light like a little star, flashing intermittently, was seen by M. Rey, in Marseilles, and by Maurice Gheury, in London, in the lunar crater Aristarchus. March 28, 1903—opposition of Mars.

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  In Cosmos, n.s., 49-259, M. Desmoulins writes, from Argenteuil, that, upon Aug. 9, 1903, at 11 p.m., moving from north to south, he saw a luminous object. The planet Venus was at primary greatest brilliance upon Aug. 13, 1903. In three respects it was like other objects that have been observed upon this earth at times of the nearest approach of Venus: it was a red object; it appeared only in a local sky, and it appeared in the time of the visibility of Venus. With M. Desmoulins were four persons, one of whom had f
ield glasses. The object was watched twenty minutes, during which time it traveled a distance estimated at five or six kilometers. It looked like a light suspended from a balloon, but, through glasses, no outline of a balloon could be seen, and there were no reflections of light as if from the opaque body of a balloon. It was a red body, with greatest luminosity in its nucleus. The Editor of Cosmos writes that, according to other correspondents, this object had been seen, at 11 p.m., July 19th and 26th, at Chatou. Argenteuil and Chatou are four or five miles apart, and both are about five miles from Paris. All three of these dates were Sundays, and even though nothing like a balloon had been seen through glasses, one naturally supposes that somebody near Paris had been amusing himself sending up fire balloons, Sunday evenings. The one great resistance to all that is known as progress is what one “naturally supposes.”

  In the English Mechanic, 81-220, Arthur Mee writes that several persons, in the neighborhood of Cardiff, had, upon the night of March 29, 1905, seen in the sky, “an appearance like a vertical beam of light, which was not due (they say) to a searchlight, or any such cause.” There were other observations, and they remind us of the observations by Noble and Bradgate, Aug. 28-29, 1883: then upon an object that cast a light like a searchlight; this time an association between a light like a searchlight, and a luminosity of definite form. In the Cambrian Natural Observer, 1905-32, are several accounts of a more definite-looking appearance that was seen, this night, in the sky of Wales—“like a long cluster of stars, obscured by a thin film or mist.” It was seen at the time of the visibility of Venus, then an “evening star”—about 10 p.m. It grew brighter, and for about half an hour looked like an incandescent light. It was a conspicuous and definite object, according to another description—“like an iron bar, heated to an orange-colored glow, and suspended vertically.”

  Three nights later, something appeared in the sky of Cherbourg, France—L’Astre Cherbourg—the thing that appeared, night after night, in the sky of the city of Cherbourg, at a time when the planet Venus was nearest (inferior conjunction April 26, 1905).

  Flammarion, in the Bull. Soc. Astro. de France, 19-243, says that this object was the planet Venus. He therefore denies that it had moved in various directions, saying that the supposed observations to this effect were illusions. In L’Illustration, April 22, 1905, he tells the story in his own way, and says some things that we are not disposed to agree with, but also he says that the ignorance of some persons in inénarrable. In Cosmos, n.s., 42-420, months after the occurrence, it is said that many correspondents had written to inquire as to L’Astre Cherbourg. The Editor gives his opinion that the object was either Jupiter or Venus. Throughout our Venus-visitor expression, the most important point is appearance in a local sky. That unifies this expression with other expressions, all of them converging into our general extra-geographic acceptances. The Editor of Cosmos says that this object, which was reported from Cherbourg, was reported from other towns as well. He probably means to say that it was seen simultaneously in different towns. For all guardians of this earth’s isolation, this is a convenient thing to say: the conclusion then is that the planet Venus, exceptionally bright, was attracting unusual attention generally, and that there was nothing in the especial sky of Cherbourg. But we have learned that standardizing disguisements often obscure our data in later accounts, and we have formed the habit of going to contemporaneous sources. We shall find that the newspapers of the time reported a luminous object that appeared, night after night, only over the city of Cherbourg, as the name by which it was known indicates. It was a reddish object. The Editor of Cosmos explains that atmospheric conditions could give this coloration to Venus. I suppose this could be so occasionally: not night after night, I should say. We shall find that this object, or a similar object, was reported from other places, but not simultaneously with its appearance over Cherbourg.

  In the Journal des Debats, the first news is in the issue of April 4, 1905. It is said that a luminous body was appearing, every evening, between eight and ten o’clock, over the city of Cherbourg.

  These were about the hours of the visibility of Venus. In this period, Venus set at 9:30 p.m., and Jupiter at 8 p.m. It is enough to make any conventionalist feel most reasonable, though he’d feel that way anyway, in thinking that of course then this object was Venus. In my own earlier speculations upon this subject, this one datum stood out so that had it not been for other data, I’d have abandoned the subject. But then I read of other occurrences: time after time has something been seen in a local sky of this earth, sometimes so definitely seen to move, not like Venus, but in various directions, that one has to think that it was not Venus, though appearing at the time of visibility of Venus. Between these appearances and visibility of Venus there does seem to be relation.

  In the Journal, it is said that L’Astre Cherbourg had an apparent diameter of fifteen centimeters, and a less definite margin of seventy-five centimeters—seemed to be about a yard wide—meaningless of course. In the Bull. Soc. Astro. de France, it is said that, according to reports, its form was oval. In the Journal des Debats, we are told that at first the thing was supposed to be a captive balloon but that this idea was given up because it appeared and disappeared.

  Journal des Debats, April 12:

  That every evening the luminous object was continuing to appear above Cherbourg; that many explanations had been thought of: by some persons that it was the planet Jupiter, and by others that it was a comet but that no one knew what it was. The comet explanation is of course ruled out. The writer in the Journal expresses regret that neither the Meteorological Bureau nor the Observatory of Paris had sent anybody to investigate, but says that the préfet maritime of Cherbourg had commissioned a naval officer to investigate. In Le Temps, of the 12th, is published an interview with Flammarion, who complains some more against general inenarrable-ness, and says that of course the object was Venus. The writer in Le Temps says that soon would the matter be settled, because the commander of a warship had undertaken to decide what the luminous body was.

  Le Figaro, April 13:

  The report of Commander de Kerillis, of the Chasseloup-Laubut—that the position of L’Astre Cherbourg was not the position of Venus, and that the disc did not look like the crescentic disc of Venus, but that the observations had been made from a vessel, under unfavorable conditions, and that the commander and his colleagues did not offer a final opinion.

  I think that there was inénarrable-ness all around. Given visibility, I can’t think what the unfavorable conditions could have been. Given, however, observations upon something that all the astronomers in the world would say could not be, one does think of the dislike of a naval officer, who, though he probably knew right ascension from declination, was himself no astronomer, to commit himself. In Le Temps, and other newspapers published in Paris, it is said that, according to the naval officers, the object might have been a comet, but that they would not positively commit themselves to this opinion, either.

  I think that somebody should be brave; so, though not positively, of course, I incline, myself, to relate these appearances over Cherbourg with the observations in Wales, upon March 29th; also I suggest that there is another report that may relate. In Le Temps, April 12, it is said that, at midnight, April 9-10, a luminous body, like L’Astre Cherbourg, was seen in the sky of Tunis. Though it was visible several minutes, it is said that this object was probably a meteor.

  Every night, from the first to the eleventh of April, a luminous body appeared in the sky of Cherbourg. Then it was seen no longer. It may have been seen sailing away, upon its final departure from the sky of Cherbourg. In Le Figaro, April 15, it is said that, upon the night of the eleventh of April, the guards of La Blanche Lighthouse had seen something like a lighted balloon in the sky. Supposing it was a balloon, they had started to signal to it, but it had disappeared. It is said that the lighthouse had been out of communication with the mainland, and that the guards had not heard of L’Astre Cherbourg.

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  In the London Times, Nov. 23, 1905, a correspondent writes that, at East Liss, Hants, which is about forty miles from Reading, he and his gamekeeper had, about 3:30 p.m., Nov. 17th, heard a loud, distant rumbling. According to this hearer, the rumbling seemed to be a composition of triplets of sounds. We shall accept that three sounds were heard, but we have no other assertion that each sound was itself so subserialized. This correspondent’s gamekeeper said that he had heard similar sounds at 11:30 a.m., and at 1:30 p.m. It is said that the sounds were not like gunfire, and that the direction from which they seemed to come, and the time in the afternoon, precluded the explanation of artillery practice at Aldershot or Portsmouth. Aldershot is about fifteen miles from East Liss, and Portsmouth about twenty.